Making Custom HL2 backgrounds

Making Custom HL2 backgrounds



What you're gonna need.
1) Photoshop (or similar editting software) and this TGA Plugin
2) Vtex converter included in steam
3) Time on your hands

firstly prepare your image

id suggest using an image that is equal to your current hl2 screen resolution.
it makes things easier and looks better then streatching a smaller image.

ok, save your image as tagra file format (.tga) and call it background01.tga

before you proceed you must ensure you image measures to the power of 2,
so if you resolution was 1280 x 1024, select image size, unckeck "constrain
image size" and change the size to 1280 x 1280. it will look out of shape but
the console will sort this out, trust me

Ok
place the background01.tga file here,

program files\valve\steam\steamapps\yournamehere\half-life 2 deathmatch\hl2mp\materialsrc

Now you need to convert the tga into a vtf format using the vtex.exe

open this directory.
program files\valve\ssteam\steamapps\yournamehere\sourcesdk\bin

and drag the background01.tga from materialsrc onto vtex.exe


The file background01.vtf will now be created in

program files\valve\ssteam\steamapps\yournamehere\half-life 2 deathmatch\hl2mp\materials


simply create a folder here, called console and place the background01.vtf inside.

Load up and there it is.


easy!!

any problems PM / email. if your stuck i dont mind making it for ya.

Pig Out!!

SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET !!!!

I never knew how to do this lol ! Thanks man !

Photoshop Portable FTW ! only 70megs lol !

I was wondering how to do that! Thanks a lot, Pig Popper


edit: I can't seem to find the materialsrc folder or the sourcesdk\bin folder.
Any idea whats wrong?

insaninc wrote:I was wondering how to do that! Thanks a lot, Pig Popper


edit: I can't seem to find the materialsrc folder or the sourcesdk\bin folder.
Any idea whats wrong?

I think you are looking for the materials folder where you should be looking for the vtex.exe?

The materialssrc folder is here. C:\Program Files\Steam\SteamApps\pigpopper\half-life 2 deathmatch\hl2mp\materialsrc

Pp

thanks PP ! =D

0nti wrote:thanks PP ! =D

np mate, how about posting a pic of what you made

well....uhmm... ohh... =P. Haven't done any yet D: But might give it a try when I get tired of the actual one ;D

bump !
how about getting this in a sticky or making a section on the U about customizations and adding it? a friend asked me how to do this and I had to go to search and try different stuff to finally find it.....

wow thats pretty cool!

Gimp works just as good doesnt it, I cannot affor £500 for photoshop!

Google it you can sometimes find it for less than $500-$600 US. (dont know the exchange rate sorry). I got CS2 over a year ago for $270 from another vendor and yes it was a legal, full version copy.

Or you do it with VTFEdit. Costs 0$ and seems much easier to me.
http://nemesis.thewavelength.net/index.php?c=178

Start VTFEdit, click on the white Page symbol that says “Import”, browse to your desired picture or wallpaper and open it.
Save it with the standard values, important thing is to have Resizing Method “Nearest Power of 2” and equal values for Height and Width.
Name the picture “background01.vtf” and save it into “hl2mp/materials/console/" folder.
Done.

Hello, hey I'm new here, onti referred me here , and I've seen those games like TF2 have 2 or more than 1 background, you could actually make 2 backgrounds and name them background01 and background02, they replace the game's 2 backgrounds (the one when loads a server, and the other one used for the main menu), could be there any chance to make this for Hl2DM too?

anyways thanks for the info, see you all around.

keefy wrote:Gimp works just as good doesnt it, I cannot affor £500 for photoshop!

http://thepiratebay.org

Jelly Fox wrote:

keefy wrote:Gimp works just as good doesnt it, I cannot affor £500 for photoshop!

http://thepiratebay.org

you know i hate the pirated photoshop it auto updates and you have to crack it again ¬_¬; I uninstalled it and I use GIMP, you can do the same, but you need more knowledge and skill (some "shortcut" tools are missing )

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BTW, here is my ingame background:


(that is a low res jpg to quickly upload and don't bother in the forum)
click it and you will see the XFire screenshot site with the real size (I believe)
I like it because it was 100% made by me in garry's mod , and it doesn't looks that bad

hey, um sorry because the double post but I want to ask something about custom screens;

how do you edit it to have your custom music, and menu items (I've seen some downloadable ones in the net but I want to put MY stuff)

thanks in advance.

I can help you with the custom stuff on the menu, but custom music? wtf? I doubt there is a way to do that, since all you can add are console commands....

0nti wrote:I can help you with the custom stuff on the menu, but custom music? wtf? I doubt there is a way to do that, since all you can add are console commands....

I added music and made a new one:

http://screenshot.xfire.com/screenshot/ ... 1d03d9.png

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http://files.filefront.com/Materialszip/;11756651;
there is the file to put it in your game, extract the file into your hl2mp folder and overwrite everything (dont worry you won't lose anything you already had in the folder), just run the game and there it is.

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the music is really simple, just grab a mp3 44khz file and drag it into hl2mp/sound/ui named "gamestartup01.mp3" that's it, you can add some more too and they will randomly play when you start the game, i've chosen some rock songs for it ;p

see ya around

bumpsies

Attn: Not Work Safe!

WTF is that herb, and where can we get the orig image?

Valar made mine for me. It scrolls.

sure it was for you. you can see the badinfluence title under the badinfluence icon.

I combined 2 images, only did it for the lulz.

badinfluence wrote:Valar made mine for me. It scrolls.

In what way does it scroll?

when you launch the game it scrolls behind your menu. i'm still trying to make only part of the image scroll..
btw that image is stretched. it resizes to normal in the menu.

val